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PHIL 184C:Epistemology of Testimony (PHIL 284C)

Many of our beliefs come from others, and not from direct experience. Is testimony a source of fundamental reasons¿reasons that do not have to be supported or validated by other sources like perception or inference? What sort of responsibility does one have to one¿s hearers, when one gives testimony?

Last offered: Winter 2012
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 184F:Feminist Theories of Knowledge (FEMST 166, PHIL 284F)

Feminist critique of traditional approaches in epistemology and alternative feminist approaches to such topics as reason and rationality, objectivity, experience, truth, the knowing subject, knowledge and values, knowledge and power.

Last offered: Spring 2007
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender

PHIL 184P:Probability and Epistemology

Confirmation theory and various ways of trying to understand the concept of evidence. Discuss a series of issues in epistemology including probabilism (the view that you should assign degrees of belief to various propositions), conditionalization, confirmational holism, reliabilism and justification, and disagreement.

Last offered: Spring 2010
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 185:Theory of Understanding (PHIL 285)

This course will survey some of the ongoing work on understanding in philosophy and psychology. The questions considered will include: What exactly is understanding? How does understanding differ from knowledge of commonplace facts? What are the different forms understanding takes (e.g. scientific, social, historical, aesthetic, etc), and how are the different forms of understanding related? Is there such a thing as implicit understanding?

Last offered: Autumn 2016
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II

PHIL 185B:Philosophy of Perception (PHIL 285B)

The nature of perceptual experience and the role it plays in securing empirical knowledge. Focus will be on what is sometimes called "the problem of perception": the question of how perception could provide us with direct awareness of the surrounding environment given the possibility of illusions or hallucinations. Topics, include the relationship between perception and belief, the nature of perceptual phenomenology, whether or not perceptual experiences are representational states, and the philosophical relevance of empirical research on perception.

Last offered: Winter 2012
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 186:Philosophy of Mind (PHIL 286)

(Graduate students register for 286.) This is an advanced introduction to core topics in the philosophy of mind. Prerequisite:
PHIL 80

PHIL 186B:Inner Sense

Often the label "inner" is used to describe aspects of ourselves we believe are not immediately observable to another. Thoughts, feelings, sensations; these all happen on the "inside," whereas speech, mannerisms, and actions are "outward" expressions. But how useful is this way of thinking? And what does it assume about what is "inner" versus what is "outer"? How reliable are the various internal mechanisms that allow us to know ourselves? Do we have a special kind of direct access to our own inner lives? And what can we know about the inner lives of others? Readings from philosophy of mind and cognitive science.

Last offered: Autumn 2012
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 187:Philosophy of Action (PHIL 287)

(Graduate students register for 287.) Contemporary research in the philosophy of action. Topics include: What is it to be an agent? Is there a philosophically defensible contrast between being an agent and being a locus of causal forces to which one is subject? What is it to act purposively? What is intention? What is the relation between intention and belief? What is it to act intentionally? What is it to act for a reason? What is the relation between explaining why someone acted by citing the reasons for which she acted and causal explanation of her action? What is the relation between theoretical and practical rationality? What is the nature of our knowledge of our own intentional activity? What is it to act autonomously? What is shared cooperative activity? Prerequisite: 80.

PHIL 188:Personal Identity (PHIL 288)

Do you persist through time the way that a skyscraper persists through space, by having different parts at different locations? Or are you ¿wholly present¿ at every moment of your life, in something more like the way that an elevator is present in each place as it travels up to the top floor? What criteria determine whether you now are the very same person as some unique person located at some time in the past? Is the continuity of your memories or other mental states sufficient for your survival? Can you survive the loss or destruction of your body? Do you really exist for more than just the present moment? How do different answers to these questions bear on your moral, personal, and professional obligations? What kinds of considerations could possibly help us to answer these questions? This course explores these and related issues. Readings include a mix of introductory survey, historical, and contemporary material.

Last offered: Winter 2011
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum

PHIL 189:Examples of Free Will (PHIL 289)

Examples drawn from three domains: choice, computation, and conflict of norms. Conceptually, a distinction is made between examples that are predictable and those that are not, but skepticism about making a sharp distinction between determinism and indeterminism is defended.